Hello, I'm Lucy Worsley, chief curator at Historic Royal Palaces.

You're listening to our podcast that explores the history and stories of our six palaces.

These talks are a collection of some of our best live events.

I really hope you enjoy listening.

In this series of talks by renowned Tudor historians, we closely examine the monarch and man

himself, Henry D. 8th. These talks were recorded live in collaboration with history today

to mark the 500th anniversary of the coronation of Henry D. 8th. In this episode, author

Hilary Mantell enlightens us on what it takes to have

influence at the Trudeau Court and what to do in order to survive King Henry VIII.

When I'm faced with these weighty questions of English history, as one book I go back to

over and over again.

The older members of the audience may know it.

1066 and all that.

This is what it says about Henry.

He invented a game called Bluff King Howl,

which he invited his ministers to play with him. The players were blindfolded and knelt down with their heads on a block of wood. They then guessed who the king

would marry next. Walsy, relatively successful at the game, it says.

His successor, Cromwell, after winning on points, was disqualified by the king,

who always acted as umpire and lost.

Well, as often with this learned work, there's a grain of sense in it,

because a glorious career could come to a bloody end if you guessed wrong and not just about wives. We want, of course, to find logic in historical events and look for chains of causation.

But often in Henry's reign, we seem to be up against the sudden and the arbitrary.

...